November 19, 2000

11:37 PM

It's officially the 20th of November (some places) and the P4 NDA's have lifted. Here come the reviews!

Anandtech gives it poor marks. On a lot of tests it gets creamed.
HardOCP is more kind, but does a much less comprehensive test against a must less formidable competitor.
GamePC gives it a "thumbs down".
I'm still waiting for Tom Pabst's review; I expect it to be brutal.
posted by Steven Den Beste (6 comments total)

One thing which is a bit funky is that these tests were done with the GeForce 2 Ultra, the fastest graphics card in existence -- and in a lot of the tests they bandwidth limit on the graphics card and all the systems end up the same speed. We need the NV-20!
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:40 PM on November 19, 2000

Hmm, I think I'll stick with the current thunderbird, very cheap, no intel sticker anywhere, and that's always good.
posted by tiaka at 2:24 AM on November 20, 2000

The current Durons are an even better deal. :)
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 8:16 AM on November 20, 2000

I think the idea here is that the P4 isn't meant to be a huge improvement over the P3 unless you consider the SIMD extensions to the instruction set. They're meant to improve performance in all kinds of floating-point intensive tasks (among other things). Wait until Adobe releases a SSE2-compatible version of Photoshop and then watch the P4 fly.

Of course, I don't think this processor will do very well. It's simply not necessary for most people, and until apps can make use of its real power, it'll be nothing more than a flashy processor for the foolhardy.
posted by Succa at 9:15 AM on November 20, 2000

Tom has spoken. My favorite vultures are circling above all the coverage of the new processor.
posted by harmful at 9:21 AM on November 20, 2000

This is some kinda computer thing, isn't it.
posted by rodii at 6:31 AM on November 21, 2000